Reviews - XDJ

Considering this is a first-try custom story I honestly think it's really good, my only criticisms are about the lighting. The map is too dark, it makes almost impossible to find crucifixes once you're out of lantern oil, my advice would be to just put a box light that covers the entire map and makes it look brighter (so you will still be able to see things once you're out of lantern oil) or some lantern oils hidden around the map (I don't know if there were any, I couldn't find any though). This, overall, is an example of how you can make a short custom story fun and quite challenging with just a very simple idea. I've got the good ending at my second try, I won't make spoilers, but I think the bad ending is the best one .-.

The Old Things and the golden eagle deserve a 10/10 without any doubt.

From the level details to the music, everything is so good and so detailed and it was really immersing. I enjoyed it a lot! :D

Because this is a long custom story I'm gonna divide my ratings by category and then I'm gonna do an average.

- Level Design: 8/10 really good and here it is clear about how much creativity you put into it, but next time I suggest you to not make too many areas that are extremely large with extremely long hallways with 10 out of 12 useless rooms

- Story: 5/10 it didn't make much sense to me and it was not well written, also in some parts near the ending it seemed that I got a choice that could alter in some way the endings but that was not it (I don't want to spoil it), also at the end when I got to a point where I had to choose between two actions (again, don't want to spoil it) it seemed that no matter of what I've chosen I always got the same ending (this could have been caused by a bug)

- Lighting: 7/10 good, but next time I suggest you to improve the lighting emitted by lamps that you can light using tinderboxes, sometimes those lamps were emitting such a poor light that made using tinderboxes totally useless. This is not something that I usually care about, but in this case, it's worth mentioning because there are A LOT of extremely dark areas

- Music used: 6/10 nice, nothing new or special

- Puzzles: 7/10 most of the puzzles are really unique and really cool, but the main problem was that most of them were not giving enough hints, leaving you with almost no information on what you should do, sometimes I got stuck not because I didn't get how to solve the puzzle but because I didn't know what was required to do in order to get the result I wanted. An example, could be the puzzle with the chair blocking the door, you had to use a specific object to get it unstuck, not all grabbable objects were ok to use. Another example is the puzzle at the very beginning where you have to light the fireplace, I suggest to give a hint of using the candlestick because candlesticks by default are not grabbable, how am I supposed to know that the candlestick is grabbable if you didn't hint it first?

- Sound design: 6/10 here there's the same issue with the atonement: at first the sound design seems really cool, the sounds you hear in the background are really scary but after a while you clearly understand the pattern used, not only that, but also the sounds used become really repetitive, for example, closing doors, grunt making noises etc. and after a while the scary factor in this context is kinda lost

- Scripting/Bug-free: 5/10 I got soft locked more than one time, even if I've downloaded the latest version, unfortunately the last time I got soft locked I had to solve that by cheating. Some scripts are poorly made, for example, there's a part where you have to carry a cogwheel and for some reason your character's movement speed is extremely slow (even while not carrying the cogwheel) and it makes it really annoying and unnecessary really hard especially because there's a brute around the area. In the cave's part your camera controls are inverted for a while for no reason, again really annoying. There's a part where you have to climb up to a window from outside and the script makes you look at the window losing any controls of the player. The problem is that a brute is around that area so what happened to me was basically I got forced to look at the window without any possibility to cancel it while a brute was already chasing me and then the brute killed me

- Scare factors/Monsters encounters: 8/10 the silent grunt was a bit annoying and terrifying at the same time, maybe add some step sound so you have a bit of information when he gets close to you, other than that really good job

Another thing worth mentioning is the lack of sanity boosting, I was almost constantly on low sanity and there was no way to regain it other than using tinderboxes (even if it was not that worth). I can see why you removed the possibility to collapse on the floor when on low sanity, I think you thought that would be annoying, but being constantly on low sanity without any possibility to regain it with harder controls of the camera is much more annoying than collapsing on the floor.

The average is 6.5 but because of the creativity and the uniqueness I'll give it a 7, good overall.

Because this is a long custom story I'm gonna divide my ratings by category and then I'm gonna do an average.

- Level Design: 10/10 really good, no complaints

- Voice acting: 10/10 one of the best one I ever heard in a custom story

- Story: 9/10 simple, unique, well written, the endings were fine

- Lighting: 8/10 good, even if some maps had strange lighting (a really shiny place next to a completely dark place)

- Music used: 7/10 nice, but nothing too special in my opinion

- Puzzles: 7/10 Most of the puzzles were well made, some of them were a bit disorienting, if there are a lot of different places and the maps are large I suggest to always add in the mementos the position of that specific object related to the puzzle. For example, there was a memento related to some acid, but there was not specified where the acid was, so I had to visit all of the close areas to re-find the acid, it would have been better to specify the exact location.

- Sound design: 6/10 the ambiance annoyed me after a while, in a custom story where there's a lot of backtracking is good to have variety in the ambiance, for me here it was missing. For example I heard like 40 times that guy in the background getting tortured, after a while too much repetitive sounds in the background, also some maps were missing static background noises. For example, if I would have stayed still on a part of the map I would have not heard anything, not even a single sound.

- Scripting/Bug-free: 6/10 I was able to complete the custom story, but I must say that at some point, in one of the torture chambers maps (can't remember the exact name), I passed through a wall, which is something it can always happen in amnesia, and I've fallen out of the map. The problem is I was keeping respawning in a point that was also out of the map, so I was keeping dying and respawning endlessly, I managed to save myself because I saved earlier but if I didn't do that probably that would cause me to lose a lot of progress.

- Scare factors/Monsters encounters: 5/10 in my opinion, some monster encounters felt really unfair, most of times it's like you're forcing the player to die and he can't do anything about it, and that's annoying instead of scary in my opinion, for example there were some encounters were you had a bright room (so the monster can see you clearly) and then you don't have literally nothing to protect yourself, it's ok if the monster doesn't one-hit-kill you but that wasn't the case. Also, after a while for me the encounters were really predictable, like I predicted 5 or 6 encounters I believe. Not only that, but many monsters were bugged: walking towards a wall, getting stuck at stairs, etc. there were still some really good encounters, one of the best was when I was trying to escape from that underground dungeon, the brute was after me and then upstairs the suitor blocked the path, that was really well made in my opinion, but there were just a few good compared to the large numbers of enemy encounters.

The average is 7.5 so overall good job :)

Upsides:
• Really good level details
• Excellent lighting
• Good sound design
• Bug-free as much as I experienced
• Puzzles are enough intuitive
Downsides:
• Not enough journal quests in my opinion, if I would save and exit and replay it after a few days I won't remember what my objective was
• Not enough scare tactics
• Run speed is reduced, this is ok if there's not backtracking but instead here there's backtracking, so reduced speed can be a bit boring

Overall not bad at all! The upsides are more than the downsides and even if maybe it's too short it's still quite enjoyable, the level details and the lighting are astonishing, I would suggest to improve the scare tactics :)

Even if it's short it's still really good!

Very detailed levels! I wished the story was a bit more detailed, also some scripted scare events are similar so after a while you kinda predict them, but overall I enjoyed it!